As a volunteer board member and fundraising chair of the Whitefish Legacy Partners (WLP), and CEO of the Sportsman & Ski Haus, a corporate sponsor of the Whitefish Trail, I have firsthand knowledge of how projects such as the Whitefish Legacy Lands conservation transactions benefit our schools, our children and the local economy. Don’t be […]

The Flathead deserves more active leaders in the next Montana Legislature who are willing to help build the local business and recreational climate of the valley. In 2009 former Rep. Dee Brown, R-Columbia Falls, proposed a pair of bills in the Legislature with potential consequences for Whitefish residents. Regarding House Bill 329, a state fiscal […]

Over the weekend, I had a brief conversation about a Wall Street Journal article I had posted to Twitter about the average nationwide earnings of a partner in a U.S. law firm. I almost didn’t post the link because I had the feeling it would generate a political conversation. Politics was not the point of […]

Considering the tone of advertisements in Montana’s U.S. Senate race in which candidates Jon Tester and Denny Rehberg are berated as hypocrites, traitors, or worse, it will be interesting to see how future campaigns for the state’s coveted judgeships will be conducted. By interesting, I mean awful. If you own a television, you have seen […]

By John Fuller In dozens of Muslim countries across the world, demonstrations allegedly protesting an American video insulting the prophet Mohammed have taken place. American property is destroyed, American sovereignty breached, American lives lost and President Barack Obama’s administration reaction is to apologize and investigate the filmmaker. In statements of lunacy, the administration is claiming […]

Have you considered: There are four U.S. Supreme Court justices who are in their mid-70s. In the next four years all four would reach age 80 and one would be 83. Presidents appoint Supreme Court judges so any judges appointed will either be conservative or very liberal. A President Mitt Romney would follow the Constitution […]

Please care enough about our country to search for facts. 1. Who are the only U.S. presidents since World War II to double or triple the national debt? 2. Which U.S. president’s policies were projected to create a $5.6 trillion budget surplus by 2011 according to the 2001 Congressional Budget Office? 3. Which vice president […]

With the opportunity of writing a monthly column for the Flathead Beacon came the challenge of continually figuring out what to write about. I was struggling with where to start when it occurred to me that the same issue comes up for folks trying to understand their electricity consumption: Where to start? To address that […]

Recently, a small business owner hugged the President. He wasn’t tackled by the Secret Service, or cuffed and taken to jail. Instead, his business’ Yelp page was inundated with fake reviews from political loyalists from sides of the aisle. Yelp is a social media business rating/review websites. The timely, personal reviews on this site, like […]

I’ve been following developments of the Island Unit (Blacktail Mountain) trail system proposal, at least partly for sentimental reasons. We came to the Flathead when my dad was named commander of the 716th Radar Squadron at Lakeside in early 1972, after three years at Malmstrom. Wow, what a great place to be. The best stretch […]

With presidential debates rapidly approaching, I contacted a Montanan who is one of the nation’s most respected experts on debating. Kalispell native and graduate of both Montana State University and the University of Montana, Allan Louden is a professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina where he coached the intercollegiate debate team to two […]

A big difference in attitude about planning exists between the city of Kalispell and Flathead County. It’s a big enough difference to cause one to wonder if the two jurisdictions live on the same planet. Kudos to the city of Kalispell for taking a 40-plus year view of re-development of the original, industrial core of […]

By John Fuller An often over-looked office in the quadrennial election season is the statewide election of the superintendent of public instruction. Besides being a member of the Land Board, the state superintendent supervises the disbursement of both state and federal education funds as well as executes the administrative rules of the Montana State Board […]

Congress returned from recess last week but no one expected it to get much done. That’s probably best, anyway. Then, if lawmakers pass any meaningful legislation – say, the five-year Farm Bill extension to provide certainty to an agriculture industry dealing with one of the worst droughts in the country’s history – those lowly expectations […]

If you value your right to own a firearm, you should consider the consequences of voting for President Barack Obama and Sen. Jon Tester in November. Obama nominated two of the most anti-gun individuals in Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. Jon Tester, along with a Democrat majority in the Senate, […]